In this article, issues of carnal knowledge, gender and agency as evident in selected texts from the Judeo-Christian tradition and the African context in South Africa are interrogated. Do the ideologies embedded in religious texts endorse unequal power relations between male and female human beings? Of particular interest for the present investigation is the issue of carnal knowledge as it is understood in African contexts and the Hebrew Bible context. Informed by the insights from both the African and the ancient (...) Israelite contexts, the key questions that this essay seeks to engage are: when the notion of carnal knowledge is engaged with, in the context of daughters in both African and biblical contexts, which insights may emerge? Can such insights contribute to the affirmation of daughters as persons with agency?Contribution: Dealing with a scarcely researched upon topic within the circles of South African Old Testament scholarship, that is, the OT text uality and the agency of younger women, through the knowledge produced herein, the HTS will be enabled to make a needed impact in patriarchal African and global contexts. (shrink)

Notions about worthy womanhood are shaped to a large extent by the cultural contexts in which they are constructed. In the global village though, shaped as it is mainly by Eurocentric cultures, it would be presumptuous to assume that one can with certainty pinpoint what may be termed ‘purely traditional African notions of womanhood’. Also, it will be an exaggeration to argue that Africa does not have its own notions on ideal womanhood. Particularly in Christian African contexts, notions about womanhood (...) are still shaped to a large extent by both the traditional African worldviews and the received biblical interpretations about womanhood. In the preceding scenario, one wonders if women’s identities reveal their real selves or whether they are tamed, and thus artificial. In one’s attempt to unravel notions of womanhood from both the corpus, Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and in the South African context, this article has sought to answer the following main question: if images of women in selected African proverbs and in the book of Proverbs are brought together, what kind of picture may emerge from such a comparison? (shrink)